3DS sales on track to best DS's first year in US

Nintendo's 3D handheld sells 1.65 million units through October in US, outpacing company's top-selling portable at comparable point in life cycle.

The Nintendo 3DS got off to a slow start after launching earlier in the year. Nintendo responded by instituting a price drop in August, bringing the system down to $170 from its original $250 price point. With 3DS sales on the rebound, Nintendo said today that first-year sales for the handheld are now on track to outpace those of the Nintendo DS's in the US.

All it took to revive 3DS sales was a 32 percent price cut.

Nintendo's comments came as part of NPD's monthly US retail sales recap. For the month of October, the 3DS sold 250,000 units in the US, bringing total sales for the handheld through the month to 1.65 million units in the region. By comparison, the original DS sold 2.37 million units during its first 12 months on the market, Nintendo said.

The 3DS goes into the holiday season with a couple of big-name releases. Super Mario 3D Land, due out this weekend, has already received a positive critical reception, and Mario Kart 7 is slated to follow on December 4. The publisher had also planned to release Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS this year, but it has since been delayed to 2012.

Beyond 3DS sales, Nintendo also revealed the hardware performance of the Wii and DS. Wii sales actually grew 8 percent year-over-year to nearly 250,000 units, while the DS line of systems saw a 23 percent sales growth to 180,000 units.

@XeonForce : Yes,to be quite honest I am much happier with the 3ds this moment in its life than the ds at it's point in this life...ds was originally extremely clunky,significantly underpowered compared to competition,extremely sparse good polygonal games,and fewer 1st party titles that felt the same quality (not necessarily power) as 1st party console titles..but with 3ds we have an already sleek and stylish design,powerful enough for most games,quite a few high-quality 1st party titles,and an extremely promising lineup.

Price drop aside, the games are now motivating people to buy the 3DS. I've owned the 3DS since launch in March and was starved to see any new games worth getting until Ocarina of Time in June. Then another drought of games until the current release of Mario the games. Hopefully these numbers will encourage the developers to now produce titles for the 3DS platform. Otherwise 3DS will go the way of the PSP which is a good piece of hardware with not a lot of games to play. I do own a PSP too.

I was always confused with all the hate and doubt the 3DS kep receiving. The original DS had it's problems too, it wasn't until the DS Lite came out and numerous good first party games like Nintendogs that the DS saw sales start to increase significantly.
As long as good games come out frequently for a given platform, and said platform is priced within reason, it will undoubtedly sell.

I am satisfied with the current 3DS model. Sure the battery life is low, but all I have to do is buy a Nyko Battery pack and that problem is solved. I don't need a second analog pad because the touch screen and gyro sensors is all I need. The games work fine with just one analog pad.
I am content with what is available at the start. The only thing that matters is the games.

Glad they are selling well. The games should make up for the loss on the systems as long as people continue to buy games. I bought cave story last week, Super Mario Land this week, and I will be buying Mario Kart 7 in a couple weeks so they will be making money off me this holiday season. It's nice some good games are finally being released.
Throw in Skyward Sword next week as well.

@moviequest14 10$ is nothing they will get that back easily once Mario 3D is released and since tech price is always dropping fast soon enough they will start making profit once again on each 3DS sold.
At the beginning Sony was losing around 307$ on 20GB PS3 and around 241$ on the 60GB consoles now we are talking about big lost.Nintendo could give the 3DS for free and it still wouldn't be comparable to Sony lost back then.

@packtop : If this were direct sales Nintendo would be making a profit..but you forgot to include shipping,employee fees,etc. and Nintendo isn't making $170 off of the 3ds..the retailers are,Nintendo is probably breaking about even (As $102) but this will be made up for in first party title sales.

This is really good news to hear but I'm sad to admit this but I'm not one of those 1.65 million who bout the 3DS from the start. I'm still playing and enjoying my DS Lite and playing some Gameboy Advance games, but I will get the 3DS one day when Nintendo and Game Freak will release the 6th Gen Pokemon for the 3DS.

@kiramasaki : I am not complaining that mario is getting an 8,8.5 or whatever it got..but if gamespot was biased for Nintendo than we wouldn't see them giving it a lower score..if they were biased for Nintendo you wouldn't see them having released 2 articles in a row about Nintendo having an estimated billion dollar loss...you wouldn't have seen an article a while back mocking the 3ds calling it'' 3-dead''.....if you think gamespot is biased for nintendo you are sadly mistaken.

Well for all that griping and moaning Nintendo is actually doing better sales-wise this year than last. 8% increase in Wii sales,and 23% for the DS are both good.And he 3DS is finally picking u team.Good to know. It means more games!

@ZERO_X02 it cost around 102$ to make a 3DS so even at 170$ they are still making some money.
And it's far from the first time Nintendo post lost during the GBA and Gamecube era before they got new president Nintendo was talking about the possibility of doing like Sega and making software only because they was losing to much money.
And even if they was losing money on each 3DS sold Sony did that with the PS3 for a really long time and still was able to make money from software to cover the lost of the hardware.

Even if Gamespot is the messegner not the writer, that doesnt mean they cant and they do , handpick what gets delieverd; and arguing gamespot giving a mario game an 8 as a slight against nintendo kinda proves my point

Lol, and everyone just a couple weeks ago was talking Nintendo having to go 3rd party because they'd go out of business(which doesn't make sense in any shape or form).
Now suddenly Mario itles are showing up and 3DS is on it's way to crushing the sales of the firts year DS?
Doesn't this happen with EVERY Nintendo system ever? Slow launch, nothign special, then Mario hits/holidays hit, everyone and their grandmother buys Nintendo.
And somehow it surprises critics everytime it happens.

The masive price cut in a few months and giving people 20 free games didn't hurt either. Maybe the price cut didn't make EVERYONE suddenly want to buy it but it sure didn't stop people who were on the fence (over the $300 price tag) from suddenly seeing it as an attainable purchase.